Can the least selling console be profitable? My thoughts about that: If the Wii sells bad: Nintendo had managed it before, too make profit out of the baddest selling console of a generation. I think they can always generate profit with their high-quality-games. I think this will be the truth this generation too. If the 360 sells bad: Microsoft has the Live-services, that generates profit for them. I think this could be enough, to be overall profitable. A special case could occur, if the Wii wins this generation. Nintendo has the childish image, the Xbox360 has the strong shooter-lineup. If the Wii wins, the Shooter-fans could buy the Xbox360 anyways. Playstation3 is stronger competition in the shooter-genre. If the Playstation sells bad: Sony has bigger losses per unit, that they have to make up for. So its a little bit difficult. But if the Playstation 3 is the last thing that was needed to start the Bluray winning against HD-DVD (and it seems to be so), Sony can make up the losses for the playstation with the additional profit they make with Bluray-movies. Just my thoughts, that do you think about this. (Excuse my bad english, I'm not a native speaker.)

Since Nintendo makes money on hardware sales, and is the biggest publsiher of games on it's own systems by a long shot they'll always do well for that alone. They system would have to sell so poorly that they didn't recoup development and marketing costs. And honestly I think even if they made a system that only played their own games I still think they'd turn a profit. I'm not saying that would be wise, or make them rich, just that they are powerful enough to pull that off(escpecially in japan these days)

neither will be not profitable... all 3 are projected to sell +30 million units.

Nintendo can. The others, maybe. Depends on how well the least selling one sold. If it was 100milliom, then 90million, and last at 80million, you still made a profit. So, it comes down to how much it sold. Sony and Microsoft probobly won't make a profit if that's the case. They spend so much on these consoles that they dig a financhial hole for themselves.

Nintendo's always been profitable on poor sales, and with the Wii being so cheap to develop, it will ensure profitability again.

In this generation? The Wii is almost at the point it's turning a profit (after R&D). The 360 is most likely going to get to that point after Christmas (and return money on the R&D as well). PS3 has a Huuuuuuuuuge way to go before it can be profitable. If the Wii or 360 were last place with around 30~40m units (not like that'll happen) it'd easily make money for MS and Nintendo. If PS3 was around 30m......I think it'd lose money. Sony invested alot of money (probably more than the 360) and is taking a bigger hit. By the time 30m sell (PS3s), the system will probably just then become profitable. Sony needs atleast 50m units (IMO) to become remotely profitable with the PS3.

stickyball, well, i'm not sure, but the original xbox sold 20m+ and wasn't profitable right? so development os the 360 was cheaper, or the price increase can overcome the expenses this time?

The Xbox sold 25m units. The problem with the Xbox was it was a loss leader for the vast majority of it's life - they reduced the price from $300 to $200 in 6 months which made them lose even more money due to poor sales. The primary reason the Xbox lost so much money was the fact it used off the shelf parts from Pentium, ATI, and so on. None of the parts (or atleast very few) were designed for the Xbox, and was subject to whatever the manufacturers wanted to chart at an open-market (non wholesale, not from their own factories). This made it cost FAR more than what the 360 is. This is why the 360 will make far more money by the 25m unit mark. The parts are made for MS and the 360, and prices are subject to the laws of components (prices are cut by 50% every 18 months), and there's no mark-up involved. MS owns the patents to the chips. This has allowed the 360 to go from $523 on launch day to around $325 on a premium unit in 12 months. Again, this is the same reason the PS3 can't be profitable at the 20~30m unit mark - the parts are too expensive to allow for profit until it sells alot of units well when it actually makes a few bucks per system. Sony makes the parts in conjunction with IBM and other companies which certainly helps costs, but the parts themselves are much trickier to make than 360 parts or Wii parts, as the Cell is a very unique product, as well as the other items.

except that sony and other companies are planning on putting the Cell in a number of other multimedia products besides the PS3. On top of that, if Blu-ray is successful, Sony will be making royalites off every blu-ray disc sold. According to their business plan, Sony doesn't necessarily have to sell as many systems as you think. oh, and Sony's a manufacturing company. no doubt they own more of the components in the PS3 than Microsoft does in the 360